SF, I completly agree with that. But what pisses me off is some of these so called "modern makers" claiming their guns are superior to the originals and that they have "improved" them. That is simply not true because it is the originals that established the 1911's well deserved and hard earned reputation for reliability which is something many so called "modern 1911 pistols" do not have. What they have is advertising hype and glossy ads.
And I KNOW from painful experience, that many of todays parts do not interchange in many 1911 guns. They require hand fitting before they will work. What we have today are 1911 PATTERN guns, because they dam sho
AIN'T an original Browning designed 1911 or 1911 A-1 pistol. If they were, they would work and we wouldn't have forum threads like this one.
But what the heck? It's something to talk and argue about until it cools off and hunting season get's here.
For what it's worth, if any of you boys feel inclined to build a 1911 pistol, I have not had problems with parts fitting or interchanging in the 1911 Colt built frames or slides, but I siick with the Series 70 guns because of the triggers. I was able to make a Series 80 Officers Model trigger improve a lot, but those new triggers with the firing pin block are an unnecessary aggravation, so I stay away from them and if you want a good trigger, you may want to also avoid them. And if you are afraid to carry a Series 70 type gun with a round in the chamber, cocked and locked, a 1911 ain't the pistol for you anyway. I even pin my grip safety down because I don't want to have to grip it like that to make it fire in case my shooting hand gets injured in the fight, or I have to shoot it weak (left) handed. But then, that's just me. I don't forget to take the safety off. It's an automatic thing.
I recently bought a stainless steel Taurus PT 1911 because it was cheap and a good platform to build a pistol on. It has a forged and machined frame and slide and came with good Heinie Straight Eight sights. I was a little anxious stripping all the MIM parts out (which means all of them) and replacing them with Cylinder and Slide parts, but I had no problems doing that and only the safety needed a little hand fitting, and even that didn't need much. It actually worked as a drop in, but it didn't work as smooth as I wanted, so I polished it up and that solved the problem.
I replaced the Henie rear sight with a Bomar (yeah. You have to file or machine the rear of the slide to make it fit) and installed a magazine funnel. I use that pistol for area combat matches and have no problems with it at all. It's had about 4000 rounds through it so far without a hickup of any kind while shooting my reloads and the accuracy has remained excellent using the Taurus barrel and bushing. I was surprised and pleased with that. I had expected to have to replace them also. If you can get over brand names on your pistol, you might want to try one of those. Or not. Some guys just have to have that fancy brand name. It must be nice to have money.
